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Swimming upstream : trends and prospects in education for health / Margaret Whitehead.

London : King's Fund Institute, 1989.




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Making the connection : health care needs of drug using prostitutes : information pack / by Jean Faugier and Steve Cranfield.

[Manchester] : School of Nursing Studies, University of Manchester, [1995?]




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Policy and guidelines for the provision of needle and syringe exchange services to young people / Tom Aldridge and Andrew Preston.

[Dorchester] : Dorset Community NHS Trust, 1997.




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The university chemical dependency project : final report : November 1 1986 / Steven A. Bloch, Steven Ungerleider.

[Indiana] : Integrated Research Services, Inc., 1986.




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Proceedings of the Parapsychological Association.

Durham, North Carolina : [Duke Station, 1957-[197-?]




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Series 02: Merle Highet sound recordings of Frederick Rose, 1990




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Pam Liell papers relating to ‘Scrolls’ Book Club, 1994-2008 including correspondence with Alex Buzo, 1994-1998




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Wedding photographs of William Thomas Cadell and Anne Macansh set in Harriet Scott graphic




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Correspondence relating to Lewis Harold Bell Lasseter, 1931




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Sydney in 1848 : illustrated by copper-plate engravings of its principal streets, public buildings, churches, chapels, etc. / from drawings by Joseph Fowles.




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Gulgong now!

Martin Polkinghorne of Collection Preservation and Storage recently travelled to Hill End, Mudgee and Gulgong for a shor




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Sizing up the collection

The Holtermann Collection Digitisation Project is focused mainly on the original glass plate negatives taken by the Amer




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Resolving the image

As discussed in last week's post we have recently made important decisions on the Holtermann Collection digitisatio




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Top three Mikayla Pivec moments: Pivec's OSU rebounding record highlights her impressive career

All-Pac-12 talent Mikayla Pivec's career in Corvallis has been memorable to say the least. While it's difficult to choose just three, her top moments include a career-high 19 rebounds against Washington, a buzzer-beating layup against ASU, and breaking Ruth Hamblin's Oregon State rebounding record this year against Stanford.




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Sydney Wiese, recovering from coronavirus, continually talking with friends and family: 'Our world is uniting'

Hear how former Oregon State guard and current member of the WNBA's LA Sparks Sydney Wiese is recovering from a COVID-19 diagnosis, seeing friends and family show support and love during a trying time.




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Clean sweep: Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu is unanimous Player of the Year after winning Wooden Award

Sabrina Ionescu wins the Wooden Award for the second year in a row, becoming the fifth in the trophy's history to win in back-to-back seasons. With the honor, she completes a complete sweep of the national postseason player of the year awards. As a senior, Ionescu matched her own single-season mark with eight triple-doubles in 2019-20, and she was incredibly efficient from the field with a career-best 51.8 field goal percentage.




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Former OSU guard Sydney Wiese talks unwavering support while recovering from coronavirus

Pac-12 Networks' Mike Yam interviews former Oregon State guard Sydney Wiese to hear how she's recovering from contracting COVID-19. Wiese recounts her recent travel and how she's been lifted up by steadfast support from friends, family and fellow WNBA players. See more from Wiese during "Pac-12 Playlist" on Monday, April 6 at 7 p.m. PT/ 8 p.m. MT on Pac-12 Network.




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New women's coach Schaefer answering a 'calling' to Texas

For Vic Schaefer, the decision to take over the Texas women's basketball program was profoundly personal. “It was a calling,” Schaefer said Monday, noting the old Austin hospital building where he was born is just across the street from where the Longhorns play at the Frank Erwin Center. Texas quickly snatched up Schaefer on Sunday, just two days after athletic director Chris Del Conte announced coach Karen Aston would not be retained after eight seasons.




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Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard, Satou Sabally share meaning of Naismith Starting 5 honor

Pac-12 Networks' Ashley Adamson speaks with Oregon stars Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard and Satou Sabally to hear how special their recent Naismith Starting 5 honor was, as the Ducks comprise three of the nation's top five players. Ionescu (point guard), Sabally (small forward) and Hebard (power forward) led the Ducks to a 31-2 record in the 2019-20 season before it was cut short.




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Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard, Satou Sabally on staying connected, WNBA Draft, Oregon's historic season

Pac-12 Networks' Ashley Adamson catches up with Oregon's "Big 3" of Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard and Satou Sabally to hear how they're adjusting to the new world without sports while still preparing for the WNBA Draft on April 17. They also share how they're staying hungry for basketball during the hiatus.




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WNBA Draft Profile: Productive forward Ruthy Hebard has uncanny handling, scoring, rebounding ability

Ruthy Hebard, who ranks 2nd in Oregon history in points (2,368) and 3rd in rebounds (1,299), prepares to play in the WNBA following four years in Eugene. Hebard is the Oregon and Pac-12 all-time leader in career field-goal percentage (65.1) and averaged 17.3 points per game and a career-high 9.6 rebounds per game as a senior.




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Aari McDonald on returning for her senior year at Arizona: 'We're ready to set the bar higher'

Arizona's Aari McDonald and Pac-12 Networks' Ashley Adamson discuss the guard's decision to return for her senior season in Tucson and how she now has the opportunity to be the face of the league. McDonald, the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, was one of the nation's top scorers in 2019-20, averaging 20.6 points per game.




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Inside Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard's lasting bond on quick look of 'Our Stories'

Learn how Oregon stars Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard developed a lasting bond as college freshmen and carried that through storied four-year careers for the Ducks. Watch "Our Stories Unfinished Business: Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard" debuting Wednesday, April 15 at 7 p.m. PT/ 8 p.m. MT on Pac-12 Network.




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Ruthy Hebard, Sabrina Ionescu 'represent everything that is great about basketball'

Ruthy Hebard and Sabrina Ionescu have had a remarkable four years together in Eugene, rewriting the history books and pushing the Ducks into the national spotlight. Catch the debut of "Our Stories Unfinished Business: Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard" at Wednesday, April 15 at 7 p.m. PT/ 8 p.m. MT on Pac-12 Network.




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Kentucky women add guards Massengill, Benton as transfers

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- Sophomore guards Jazmine Massengill and Robyn Benton transferred to Kentucky from Southeastern Conference rivals Wednesday.




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Dr. Michelle Tom shares journey from ASU women's hoops to treating COVID-19 patients

Pac-12 Networks' Ashley Adamson speaks with former Arizona State women's basketball player Michelle Tom, who is now a doctor treating COVID-19 patients Winslow Indian Health Care Center and Little Colorado Medical Center in Eastern Arizona.




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Ivey introduced as new Notre Dame coach, succeeding McGraw

Niele Ivey is coming home.




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UCLA's Natalie Chou on her role models, inspiring Asian-American girls in basketball

Pac-12 Networks' Mike Yam has a conversation with UCLA's Natalie Chou during Wednesday's "Pac-12 Perspective" podcast. Chou reflects on her role models, passion for basketball and how her mom has made a big impact on her hoops career.




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Oregon State's Aleah Goodman, Maddie Washington reflect on earning 2020 Pac-12 Sportsmanship Award

The Pac-12 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee voted to award the Oregon State women’s basketball team with the Pac-12 Sportsmanship Award for the 2019-20 season, honoring their character and sportsmanship before a rivalry game against Oregon in Jan. 2020 -- the day Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Gigi, and seven others passed away in a helicopter crash in Southern California. In the above video, Aleah Goodman and Madison Washington share how the teams came together as one in a circle of prayer before the game.




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Oregon State women's basketball receives Pac-12 Sportsmanship Award for supporting rival Oregon in tragedy

On the day Kobe Bryant suddenly passed away, the Beavers embraced their rivals at midcourt in a moment of strength to support the Ducks, many of whom had personal connections to Bryant and his daughter, Gigi. For this, Oregon State is the 2020 recipient of the Pac-12 Sportsmanship Award.




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Natalie Chou breaks through stereotypes, inspires young Asian American girls on 'Our Stories' quick look

Watch the debut of "Our Stories - Natalie Chou" on Sunday, May 10 at 12:30 p.m. PT/ 1:30 p.m. MT on Pac-12 Network.




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The limiting behavior of isotonic and convex regression estimators when the model is misspecified

Eunji Lim.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 2053--2097.

Abstract:
We study the asymptotic behavior of the least squares estimators when the model is possibly misspecified. We consider the setting where we wish to estimate an unknown function $f_{*}:(0,1)^{d} ightarrow mathbb{R}$ from observations $(X,Y),(X_{1},Y_{1}),cdots ,(X_{n},Y_{n})$; our estimator $hat{g}_{n}$ is the minimizer of $sum _{i=1}^{n}(Y_{i}-g(X_{i}))^{2}/n$ over $gin mathcal{G}$ for some set of functions $mathcal{G}$. We provide sufficient conditions on the metric entropy of $mathcal{G}$, under which $hat{g}_{n}$ converges to $g_{*}$ as $n ightarrow infty $, where $g_{*}$ is the minimizer of $|g-f_{*}| riangleq mathbb{E}(g(X)-f_{*}(X))^{2}$ over $gin mathcal{G}$. As corollaries of our theorem, we establish $|hat{g}_{n}-g_{*}| ightarrow 0$ as $n ightarrow infty $ when $mathcal{G}$ is the set of monotone functions or the set of convex functions. We also make a connection between the convergence rate of $|hat{g}_{n}-g_{*}|$ and the metric entropy of $mathcal{G}$. As special cases of our finding, we compute the convergence rate of $|hat{g}_{n}-g_{*}|^{2}$ when $mathcal{G}$ is the set of bounded monotone functions or the set of bounded convex functions.




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Gaussian field on the symmetric group: Prediction and learning

François Bachoc, Baptiste Broto, Fabrice Gamboa, Jean-Michel Loubes.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 503--546.

Abstract:
In the framework of the supervised learning of a real function defined on an abstract space $mathcal{X}$, Gaussian processes are widely used. The Euclidean case for $mathcal{X}$ is well known and has been widely studied. In this paper, we explore the less classical case where $mathcal{X}$ is the non commutative finite group of permutations (namely the so-called symmetric group $S_{N}$). We provide an application to Gaussian process based optimization of Latin Hypercube Designs. We also extend our results to the case of partial rankings.




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Univariate mean change point detection: Penalization, CUSUM and optimality

Daren Wang, Yi Yu, Alessandro Rinaldo.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1917--1961.

Abstract:
The problem of univariate mean change point detection and localization based on a sequence of $n$ independent observations with piecewise constant means has been intensively studied for more than half century, and serves as a blueprint for change point problems in more complex settings. We provide a complete characterization of this classical problem in a general framework in which the upper bound $sigma ^{2}$ on the noise variance, the minimal spacing $Delta $ between two consecutive change points and the minimal magnitude $kappa $ of the changes, are allowed to vary with $n$. We first show that consistent localization of the change points is impossible in the low signal-to-noise ratio regime $frac{kappa sqrt{Delta }}{sigma }preceq sqrt{log (n)}$. In contrast, when $frac{kappa sqrt{Delta }}{sigma }$ diverges with $n$ at the rate of at least $sqrt{log (n)}$, we demonstrate that two computationally-efficient change point estimators, one based on the solution to an $ell _{0}$-penalized least squares problem and the other on the popular wild binary segmentation algorithm, are both consistent and achieve a localization rate of the order $frac{sigma ^{2}}{kappa ^{2}}log (n)$. We further show that such rate is minimax optimal, up to a $log (n)$ term.




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Sparse equisigned PCA: Algorithms and performance bounds in the noisy rank-1 setting

Arvind Prasadan, Raj Rao Nadakuditi, Debashis Paul.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 345--385.

Abstract:
Singular value decomposition (SVD) based principal component analysis (PCA) breaks down in the high-dimensional and limited sample size regime below a certain critical eigen-SNR that depends on the dimensionality of the system and the number of samples. Below this critical eigen-SNR, the estimates returned by the SVD are asymptotically uncorrelated with the latent principal components. We consider a setting where the left singular vector of the underlying rank one signal matrix is assumed to be sparse and the right singular vector is assumed to be equisigned, that is, having either only nonnegative or only nonpositive entries. We consider six different algorithms for estimating the sparse principal component based on different statistical criteria and prove that by exploiting sparsity, we recover consistent estimates in the low eigen-SNR regime where the SVD fails. Our analysis reveals conditions under which a coordinate selection scheme based on a sum-type decision statistic outperforms schemes that utilize the $ell _{1}$ and $ell _{2}$ norm-based statistics. We derive lower bounds on the size of detectable coordinates of the principal left singular vector and utilize these lower bounds to derive lower bounds on the worst-case risk. Finally, we verify our findings with numerical simulations and a illustrate the performance with a video data where the interest is in identifying objects.




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Assessing prediction error at interpolation and extrapolation points

Assaf Rabinowicz, Saharon Rosset.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 272--301.

Abstract:
Common model selection criteria, such as $AIC$ and its variants, are based on in-sample prediction error estimators. However, in many applications involving predicting at interpolation and extrapolation points, in-sample error does not represent the relevant prediction error. In this paper new prediction error estimators, $tAI$ and $Loss(w_{t})$ are introduced. These estimators generalize previous error estimators, however are also applicable for assessing prediction error in cases involving interpolation and extrapolation. Based on these prediction error estimators, two model selection criteria with the same spirit as $AIC$ and Mallow’s $C_{p}$ are suggested. The advantages of our suggested methods are demonstrated in a simulation and a real data analysis of studies involving interpolation and extrapolation in linear mixed model and Gaussian process regression.




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Exact recovery in block spin Ising models at the critical line

Matthias Löwe, Kristina Schubert.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1796--1815.

Abstract:
We show how to exactly reconstruct the block structure at the critical line in the so-called Ising block model. This model was recently re-introduced by Berthet, Rigollet and Srivastava in [2]. There the authors show how to exactly reconstruct blocks away from the critical line and they give an upper and a lower bound on the number of observations one needs; thereby they establish a minimax optimal rate (up to constants). Our technique relies on a combination of their methods with fluctuation results obtained in [20]. The latter are extended to the full critical regime. We find that the number of necessary observations depends on whether the interaction parameter between two blocks is positive or negative: In the first case, there are about $Nlog N$ observations required to exactly recover the block structure, while in the latter case $sqrt{N}log N$ observations suffice.




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Efficient estimation in expectile regression using envelope models

Tuo Chen, Zhihua Su, Yi Yang, Shanshan Ding.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 143--173.

Abstract:
As a generalization of the classical linear regression, expectile regression (ER) explores the relationship between the conditional expectile of a response variable and a set of predictor variables. ER with respect to different expectile levels can provide a comprehensive picture of the conditional distribution of the response variable given the predictors. We adopt an efficient estimation method called the envelope model ([8]) in ER, and construct a novel envelope expectile regression (EER) model. Estimation of the EER parameters can be performed using the generalized method of moments (GMM). We establish the consistency and derive the asymptotic distribution of the EER estimators. In addition, we show that the EER estimators are asymptotically more efficient than the ER estimators. Numerical experiments and real data examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency gains attained by EER compared to ER, and the efficiency gains can further lead to improvements in prediction.




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Nonparametric false discovery rate control for identifying simultaneous signals

Sihai Dave Zhao, Yet Tien Nguyen.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 110--142.

Abstract:
It is frequently of interest to identify simultaneous signals, defined as features that exhibit statistical significance across each of several independent experiments. For example, genes that are consistently differentially expressed across experiments in different animal species can reveal evolutionarily conserved biological mechanisms. However, in some problems the test statistics corresponding to these features can have complicated or unknown null distributions. This paper proposes a novel nonparametric false discovery rate control procedure that can identify simultaneous signals even without knowing these null distributions. The method is shown, theoretically and in simulations, to asymptotically control the false discovery rate. It was also used to identify genes that were both differentially expressed and proximal to differentially accessible chromatin in the brains of mice exposed to a conspecific intruder. The proposed method is available in the R package github.com/sdzhao/ssa.




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Model-based clustering with envelopes

Wenjing Wang, Xin Zhang, Qing Mai.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 82--109.

Abstract:
Clustering analysis is an important unsupervised learning technique in multivariate statistics and machine learning. In this paper, we propose a set of new mixture models called CLEMM (in short for Clustering with Envelope Mixture Models) that is based on the widely used Gaussian mixture model assumptions and the nascent research area of envelope methodology. Formulated mostly for regression models, envelope methodology aims for simultaneous dimension reduction and efficient parameter estimation, and includes a very recent formulation of envelope discriminant subspace for classification and discriminant analysis. Motivated by the envelope discriminant subspace pursuit in classification, we consider parsimonious probabilistic mixture models where the cluster analysis can be improved by projecting the data onto a latent lower-dimensional subspace. The proposed CLEMM framework and the associated envelope-EM algorithms thus provide foundations for envelope methods in unsupervised and semi-supervised learning problems. Numerical studies on simulated data and two benchmark data sets show significant improvement of our propose methods over the classical methods such as Gaussian mixture models, K-means and hierarchical clustering algorithms. An R package is available at https://github.com/kusakehan/CLEMM.




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Simultaneous transformation and rounding (STAR) models for integer-valued data

Daniel R. Kowal, Antonio Canale.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1744--1772.

Abstract:
We propose a simple yet powerful framework for modeling integer-valued data, such as counts, scores, and rounded data. The data-generating process is defined by Simultaneously Transforming and Rounding (STAR) a continuous-valued process, which produces a flexible family of integer-valued distributions capable of modeling zero-inflation, bounded or censored data, and over- or underdispersion. The transformation is modeled as unknown for greater distributional flexibility, while the rounding operation ensures a coherent integer-valued data-generating process. An efficient MCMC algorithm is developed for posterior inference and provides a mechanism for adaptation of successful Bayesian models and algorithms for continuous data to the integer-valued data setting. Using the STAR framework, we design a new Bayesian Additive Regression Tree model for integer-valued data, which demonstrates impressive predictive distribution accuracy for both synthetic data and a large healthcare utilization dataset. For interpretable regression-based inference, we develop a STAR additive model, which offers greater flexibility and scalability than existing integer-valued models. The STAR additive model is applied to study the recent decline in Amazon river dolphins.




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A fast MCMC algorithm for the uniform sampling of binary matrices with fixed margins

Guanyang Wang.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1690--1706.

Abstract:
Uniform sampling of binary matrix with fixed margins is an important and difficult problem in statistics, computer science, ecology and so on. The well-known swap algorithm would be inefficient when the size of the matrix becomes large or when the matrix is too sparse/dense. Here we propose the Rectangle Loop algorithm, a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to sample binary matrices with fixed margins uniformly. Theoretically the Rectangle Loop algorithm is better than the swap algorithm in Peskun’s order. Empirically studies also demonstrates the Rectangle Loop algorithm is remarkablely more efficient than the swap algorithm.




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On change-point estimation under Sobolev sparsity

Aurélie Fischer, Dominique Picard.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1648--1689.

Abstract:
In this paper, we consider the estimation of a change-point for possibly high-dimensional data in a Gaussian model, using a maximum likelihood method. We are interested in how dimension reduction can affect the performance of the method. We provide an estimator of the change-point that has a minimax rate of convergence, up to a logarithmic factor. The minimax rate is in fact composed of a fast rate —dimension-invariant— and a slow rate —increasing with the dimension. Moreover, it is proved that considering the case of sparse data, with a Sobolev regularity, there is a bound on the separation of the regimes above which there exists an optimal choice of dimension reduction, leading to the fast rate of estimation. We propose an adaptive dimension reduction procedure based on Lepski’s method and show that the resulting estimator attains the fast rate of convergence. Our results are then illustrated by a simulation study. In particular, practical strategies are suggested to perform dimension reduction.




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Asymptotic seed bias in respondent-driven sampling

Yuling Yan, Bret Hanlon, Sebastien Roch, Karl Rohe.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1577--1610.

Abstract:
Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) collects a sample of individuals in a networked population by incentivizing the sampled individuals to refer their contacts into the sample. This iterative process is initialized from some seed node(s). Sometimes, this selection creates a large amount of seed bias. Other times, the seed bias is small. This paper gains a deeper understanding of this bias by characterizing its effect on the limiting distribution of various RDS estimators. Using classical tools and results from multi-type branching processes [12], we show that the seed bias is negligible for the Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimator and non-negligible for both the inverse probability weighted and Volz-Heckathorn (VH) estimators. In particular, we show that (i) above a critical threshold, VH converge to a non-trivial mixture distribution, where the mixture component depends on the seed node, and the mixture distribution is possibly multi-modal. Moreover, (ii) GLS converges to a Gaussian distribution independent of the seed node, under a certain condition on the Markov process. Numerical experiments with both simulated data and empirical social networks suggest that these results appear to hold beyond the Markov conditions of the theorems.




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Estimating piecewise monotone signals

Kentaro Minami.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1508--1576.

Abstract:
We study the problem of estimating piecewise monotone vectors. This problem can be seen as a generalization of the isotonic regression that allows a small number of order-violating changepoints. We focus mainly on the performance of the nearly-isotonic regression proposed by Tibshirani et al. (2011). We derive risk bounds for the nearly-isotonic regression estimators that are adaptive to piecewise monotone signals. The estimator achieves a near minimax convergence rate over certain classes of piecewise monotone signals under a weak assumption. Furthermore, we present an algorithm that can be applied to the nearly-isotonic type estimators on general weighted graphs. The simulation results suggest that the nearly-isotonic regression performs as well as the ideal estimator that knows the true positions of changepoints.




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Beta-Binomial stick-breaking non-parametric prior

María F. Gil–Leyva, Ramsés H. Mena, Theodoros Nicoleris.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1479--1507.

Abstract:
A new class of nonparametric prior distributions, termed Beta-Binomial stick-breaking process, is proposed. By allowing the underlying length random variables to be dependent through a Beta marginals Markov chain, an appealing discrete random probability measure arises. The chain’s dependence parameter controls the ordering of the stick-breaking weights, and thus tunes the model’s label-switching ability. Also, by tuning this parameter, the resulting class contains the Dirichlet process and the Geometric process priors as particular cases, which is of interest for MCMC implementations. Some properties of the model are discussed and a density estimation algorithm is proposed and tested with simulated datasets.




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A Bayesian approach to disease clustering using restricted Chinese restaurant processes

Claudia Wehrhahn, Samuel Leonard, Abel Rodriguez, Tatiana Xifara.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1449--1478.

Abstract:
Identifying disease clusters (areas with an unusually high incidence of a particular disease) is a common problem in epidemiology and public health. We describe a Bayesian nonparametric mixture model for disease clustering that constrains clusters to be made of adjacent areal units. This is achieved by modifying the exchangeable partition probability function associated with the Ewen’s sampling distribution. We call the resulting prior the Restricted Chinese Restaurant Process, as the associated full conditional distributions resemble those associated with the standard Chinese Restaurant Process. The model is illustrated using synthetic data sets and in an application to oral cancer mortality in Germany.




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Computing the degrees of freedom of rank-regularized estimators and cousins

Rahul Mazumder, Haolei Weng.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1348--1385.

Abstract:
Estimating a low rank matrix from its linear measurements is a problem of central importance in contemporary statistical analysis. The choice of tuning parameters for estimators remains an important challenge from a theoretical and practical perspective. To this end, Stein’s Unbiased Risk Estimate (SURE) framework provides a well-grounded statistical framework for degrees of freedom estimation. In this paper, we use the SURE framework to obtain degrees of freedom estimates for a general class of spectral regularized matrix estimators—our results generalize beyond the class of estimators that have been studied thus far. To this end, we use a result due to Shapiro (2002) pertaining to the differentiability of symmetric matrix valued functions, developed in the context of semidefinite optimization algorithms. We rigorously verify the applicability of Stein’s Lemma towards the derivation of degrees of freedom estimates; and also present new techniques based on Gaussian convolution to estimate the degrees of freedom of a class of spectral estimators, for which Stein’s Lemma does not directly apply.




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$k$-means clustering of extremes

Anja Janßen, Phyllis Wan.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1211--1233.

Abstract:
The $k$-means clustering algorithm and its variant, the spherical $k$-means clustering, are among the most important and popular methods in unsupervised learning and pattern detection. In this paper, we explore how the spherical $k$-means algorithm can be applied in the analysis of only the extremal observations from a data set. By making use of multivariate extreme value analysis we show how it can be adopted to find “prototypes” of extremal dependence and derive a consistency result for our suggested estimator. In the special case of max-linear models we show furthermore that our procedure provides an alternative way of statistical inference for this class of models. Finally, we provide data examples which show that our method is able to find relevant patterns in extremal observations and allows us to classify extremal events.




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Testing goodness of fit for point processes via topological data analysis

Christophe A. N. Biscio, Nicolas Chenavier, Christian Hirsch, Anne Marie Svane.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1024--1074.

Abstract:
We introduce tests for the goodness of fit of point patterns via methods from topological data analysis. More precisely, the persistent Betti numbers give rise to a bivariate functional summary statistic for observed point patterns that is asymptotically Gaussian in large observation windows. We analyze the power of tests derived from this statistic on simulated point patterns and compare its performance with global envelope tests. Finally, we apply the tests to a point pattern from an application context in neuroscience. As the main methodological contribution, we derive sufficient conditions for a functional central limit theorem on bounded persistent Betti numbers of point processes with exponential decay of correlations.